MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM: Francesco Totti has revealed that Manchester City’s light-hearted tweet provided the motivation for the goal that leaves Manuel Pellegrini’s side facing an early Champions League exit.

Totti, the Roma captain, registered his first goal in England on Tuesday night, hours after City had pointed out his failure to score in this country on their official Twitter account.

City will take no internal action over the message and insist it was merely a remark intending to poke fun at the forward, who became the oldest goalscorer in European football history at 38 years and three days.

Totti’s equaliser ensured that Pellegrini is still without a victory in this campaign and the forward admitted that the pre-match tweet proved inspirational.

“City’s tweet? It really brought me luck,” Totti told Gazzetta dello Sport. “It was a beautiful goal and a good performance. I really wanted to score as soon as possible as I had not found the back of the net this season.

“But, above all, I am thrilled for my team because we have shown a lot of strength, which was not easy.”

The goal took the former Italy international past Ryan Giggs to become the oldest player to score in the Champions League. “It really wasn’t something I was thinking of when I was on the pitch,” Totti said. “Records arrive thanks to the help of your teammates and what really matters is the result of the team. My main focus is on the team and not on myself.”

Roma remain unbeaten and move to second in Group E after two games. Rudi Garcia’s side are two points adrift of the pool leaders Bayern Munich, who travel to play Roma on October 21, and three points clear of City.

“After the group was drawn, few people gave us any hope of doing well,” Totti said. “But we have proved that we can play against any team. We have shown we are strong and competitive and we fear no one.”

City supporters, meanwhile, have hit back at criticism from Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand over the lack of atmosphere at the Etihad Stadium. The attendance on Tuesday was 37,509, around 10,000 short of the ground’s capacity, which is being increased to 54,000 over the next year and, eventually, to 62,000.

The atmosphere was subdued and Scholes, in his role as a pundit for ITV Sport, said City’s European nights did not have a “special feeling” while Ferdinand used his Twitter feed to question why the club need to expand their stadium.

Andy Savage, who runs the MCFCForum.com website, felt these were cheap shots from wealthy footballers. He said of the former Manchester United pair: “He [Ferdinand] was an absolute disgrace on Twitter, as was Scholes on ITV. They are multi-millionaires. They don’t give the man on the street a second thought, how much it is costing people.

“The cost of living is going up, so many people are out of work. Football is not everyone’s priority like it used to be. People just can’t afford, over the course of the month, to pay for tickets three, four or five times.”